Goodman Games

Will the DCC RPG be availabe through Amazon? Cannot seem to find it there even for a pre-order.

If it was I would have been on it with the two day shipping!

No plans to sell through Amazon.

Thats too bad. I only make my gaming purchases through amazon.

Any reason why, when the rest of GG offerings are available through Amazon?

This is a baffling decision. I still plan on purchasing the book as a PDF, but why not sale it on amazon? Care to enlighten a confused gamer?

Yeah although I have my (2 ) copies because of the pre-order AND the temporary offer of $4 shipping I find 'no Amazon' an odd decision. There are about 3 or 4 places in the entire NZ that could sell DCC but the mark up would be (like all games they sell) massive and none are anywhere near me. Many people get their RPG goodies through Amazon (I get most that way) and it is odd to exclude such a large potential market.

Machpants wrote:Yeah although I have my (2 ) copies because of the pre-order AND the temporary offer of $4 shipping I find 'no Amazon' an odd decision. There are about 3 or 4 places in the entire NZ that could sell DCC but the mark up would be (like all games they sell) massive and none are anywhere near me. Many people get their RPG goodies through Amazon (I get most that way) and it is odd to exclude such a large potential market.

I never even thought of how important Amazon is to reach international buyers. Good point.

Even including shipping from UK/USA amazon is about half price compared to the massively over priced books in NZ, all books. Now that amazon.co.uk have dropped the free shipping to NZ I also get a lot from bookdepository.com/.co.uk; their prices include free shipping. Like 42$NZ for the Pathfinder Beginner Box to my door!

Machpants wrote: such a large potential market.

I'm no expert (unless you count the hotel I stayed at last night) but my guess is that it is harder for a "small press" publisher to offer their product on such a deeply discounted service. Through economies of scale, a big company like Random House or Penguin can print a book for practically nothing, so they print millions and some can go to be sold on a website that sells them and ships them for very little. A small publisher does not have that volume, and may not be able to sell to Amazon at the discount Amazon wants. It's no use having a large potential market if you lose money with every book.

My other guess is that a small publisher who depends on gaming stores to sell and promote their product can't then offer their books through Amazon for far less than any physical store can offer, because that would be a huge depth charge that directly impacts a small store's ability to stay open. Before 1995, game stores were the only source of news about new games, as well as the only source to buy them, so there's some inertia where game companies try to support the small businesses that supported them. For customers, buying local helps your community, and a healthy game store should be able to encourage the creation of new players and the possibility of local game groups or conventions.

For people overseas, it's a tough break. Your hobby was created and thrives in a distant country, and then suddenly Amazon offers everything to you at the same price a Merrikan would pay. How can you resist that? The only answer I have is if your local game store has made an effort to be nice to you and earn your loyalty, then you might feel they deserve some of your game buying dollars. My country is next door to America and we pay very high prices for books brought across the border (even though the paper was Canadian, and often the book was printed in Canada, but the cover price was calculated by someone in the US), so I can't imagine what it costs to send across an ocean.

I'm guessing bill is correct. Amazon sell at a discount that could well kill Goodman's already slim margin on the book. When you consider that it's a very heavily illustrated book of thick, quality paper stock, hardcover, woven and glued in binding, heavy and thick (say hello to greater distribution costs), and hundreds of pages. And it's being sold in a small, niche-of-a-niche market for only $40.00. It's a [expletive deleted] steal as it is; Atomic Highway, for example, had to be priced at $30.00 and that's a much slimmer volume with less art, softcover, glued binding, and thinner stock. Oh, and let's also not forget, Goodman is smaller than the likes of Paizo, so he does not have the same economies of scale.

Colin

RAD Colin wrote:I'm guessing bill is correct. Amazon sell at a discount that could well kill Goodman's already slim margin on the book. When you consider that it's a very heavily illustrated book of thick, quality paper stock, hardcover, woven and glued in binding, heavy and thick (say hello to greater distribution costs), and hundreds of pages. And it's being sold in a small, niche-of-a-niche market for only $40.00. It's a [expletive deleted] steal as it is; Atomic Highway, for example, had to be priced at $30.00 and that's a much slimmer volume with less art, softcover, glued binding, and thinner stock. Oh, and let's also not forget, Goodman is smaller than the likes of Paizo, so he does not have the same economies of scale.

Then the book should cost more. Giving a great "price" that doesn't reflect the real value of the product is just selling yourself short. Seriously, giving away your margin is no way to be successful. This has nothing to do with economies of scale. It has to do with over-specifying the product compared to the price point desired. I understand DCCRPG is a labor of love.

The entire RPG industry has this problem. Buyers have become use to these kinds of "steals" because too many underpriced labors of love make it to the store shelves. And because of this other publishers can't sell a game for $50 or $60 because "Hey, Goodman had that artwork-packed DCCRPG release for just $40. Why can't you?"

Sorry about the rant. But I'm disappointed to discover I will not get to own a copy of this game.

jmucchiello wrote:I will not get to own a copy of this game.

Out of curiosity, why not? Is there something Amazon offers that you simply can't get elsewhere? And what about the large number of Amazon Storefronts (formerly Z-Shops; all the other merchants offering New and Used copies at different prices)? Surely it'll turn up there at some point?

Colin

Downloading my copy now from DrivethruRPG. Good times

Alaxk wrote:Downloading my copy now from DrivethruRPG. Good times

Thanks for the heads up; I grabbed it too. Since it's my day off, I read it through (apart from the spell tables).

What an inspirational read! So many new ideas for house rules/my own campaign! Now my mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Better go write some of it down. I'm thinking elves get their own magic system, clerics use the gods and demons of Greyhawk, and wizards can choose to sacrifice some hit points every morning in order to memorize some Pathfinder cantrips: weak magic, but no chance of failure, corruption or patron taint.

jmucchiello wrote:

RAD Colin wrote:I'm guessing bill is correct. Amazon sell at a discount that could well kill Goodman's already slim margin on the book. When you consider that it's a very heavily illustrated book of thick, quality paper stock, hardcover, woven and glued in binding, heavy and thick (say hello to greater distribution costs), and hundreds of pages. And it's being sold in a small, niche-of-a-niche market for only $40.00. It's a [expletive deleted] steal as it is; Atomic Highway, for example, had to be priced at $30.00 and that's a much slimmer volume with less art, softcover, glued binding, and thinner stock. Oh, and let's also not forget, Goodman is smaller than the likes of Paizo, so he does not have the same economies of scale.

Then the book should cost more. Giving a great "price" that doesn't reflect the real value of the product is just selling yourself short. Seriously, giving away your margin is no way to be successful. This has nothing to do with economies of scale. It has to do with over-specifying the product compared to the price point desired. I understand DCCRPG is a labor of love.

The entire RPG industry has this problem. Buyers have become use to these kinds of "steals" because too many underpriced labors of love make it to the store shelves. And because of this other publishers can't sell a game for $50 or $60 because "Hey, Goodman had that artwork-packed DCCRPG release for just $40. Why can't you?"

Sorry about the rant. But I'm disappointed to discover I will not get to own a copy of this game.

You're being a little disingenuous here. To start, a good many of the RPGs on the market are not making money. Companies could price their books to better recoup expenses, sure, but eventually they're going to price themselves out of the market. Either the quality of the book suffers, or the price doesn't justify the product. Balancing these concerns, I think GG priced this book correctly.

The second point is that companies like Amazon and other online retailers have created an expectation of never paying retail for a product. Why is it an issue to purchase from GG directly? Some have pointed out the international market, which is valid, but do you think that the profits from those markets would sufficiently cover the reduced overall margins if were on Amazon? The answer is no, as GG would lose a huge amount of its direct sales.

I can understand wanting to distance oneself from Amazon.

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2012/05/35-shad ... wling.html

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/16/ ... ce=cnn_bin

"It's perhaps more shocking that Amazon (AMZN) not only sells the books, it's also helping their authors create them. All of the apparent copycat books that Fortune found on Amazon were made through CreateSpace, which is a division of Amazon."

Looks like the same crap is happening to Rappan Athuk with Barnes & Noble. I wonder if someone is expecting the PDF, and is going to self-publish and sell it through B&N? That's some dirty dealing there.

http://swordsandwizardry.blogspot.com/2 ... truth.html

Vanguard wrote:You're being a little disingenuous here. To start, a good many of the RPGs on the market are not making money. Companies could price their books to better recoup expenses, sure, but eventually they're going to price themselves out of the market. Either the quality of the book suffers, or the price doesn't justify the product. Balancing these concerns, I think GG priced this book correctly.

The second point is that companies like Amazon and other online retailers have created an expectation of never paying retail for a product. Why is it an issue to purchase from GG directly? Some have pointed out the international market, which is valid, but do you think that the profits from those markets would sufficiently cover the reduced overall margins if were on Amazon? The answer is no, as GG would lose a huge amount of its direct sales.

I agree with this. I got a lecture (though very respectfully and well meant) from one of the retailers when I went to solicit my zine. He threw out a lot of business lingo, this and that about profit margins, etc. His words, "You may think that 25-30% profit is great, but to me that's a 15-20% loss...40% profit is the minimum, preferably 50%." That's pretty much standard business practice, and why companies like Amazon, Walmart & Bestbuy are considered evil to small businesses. Those mega-stores can get away with 6-7% profits (which is why 33% or 34% Off is so popular.) When they sell something at 40% off retail, they're pretty much selling at cost. They can afford that through loss-leaders or subsidies, but bricks and mortars can't. Basic economics, I guess.

The pricing is totally fair, especially for retailers. Joseph decision to not discount his online store, or offer them through giant retailers is rooted in basic principles of supporting small businesses and FLGSs. And it's pretty simple, really, since GG's a small business itself.

This is a topic that all books are dealing with. The rise of kindles and ipads also fuel this debate. I think the future of pen and paper games are sites like rpgnow. I respect the descision by GG for not going through Amazon (if that was thier descision anyways). I usually buy stuff online and I dont mind paying retail from GG instead of Amazon. I just don't see anyway of avoiding those giants however. I use to get dirty looks and called a commie when I said Wal Mart will bring us down but I guess it's economic evolution. Going to a cool neighborhood gaming store nowadays is the fantasy for me in FRPG. I miss the 80s (never knew I would say THAT!).

With that said, kudos to Rev Dak for Crawl.

If Amazon buys the book from GGs for the same price that GGs sells it to a gaming store, how does this affect GG's profit? Amazon can sell it for whatever they want right? I mean if GGs sets the price they sell the game , so how can they "lose" money by selling to Amazon?

My undertanding was that retailers have to mark up the cost to make a profit because they have overhead costs of running a store, but Amazon can sell for a discount because they don't have a store. Are you guys claiming that GG has to sell for the price that Amazon sets? So Amazon is forcing GG to sell cheaper and losing profit? It doesn't make sense to me. . .

Blustar wrote:If Amazon buys the book from GGs for the same price that GGs sells it to a gaming store, how does this affect GG's profit? Amazon can sell it for whatever they want right? I mean if GGs sets the price they sell the game , so how can they "lose" money by selling to Amazon?

My undertanding was that retailers have to mark up the cost to make a profit because they have overhead costs of running a store, but Amazon can sell for a discount because they don't have a store. Are you guys claiming that GG has to sell for the price that Amazon sets? So Amazon is forcing GG to sell cheaper and losing profit? It doesn't make sense to me. . .

Yes. Large retailers like Amazon have actually reversed the traditional method of negotiating prices with a distributor. The likelihood that Amazon would purchase the books at the same price per unit as a small brick-and-mortar store is extremely unlikely. They can leverage the fact that they are the largest online retailer in the world, that they a buying in such bulk, etc as to justify a lower cost per unit.

While it may seem like they are only losing a little bit of money per book, the problem becomes increasingly exacerbated because the company starts losing direct sales to Amazon, as they offer a discount that GG does not.

These numbers are entirely fictitious, but still illustrate the point:

For the purposes of this equation, let's say the book costs $20 to produce and GG prints 100 copies in total. The cost of that print run is $2000.

The retail price is $40

If they sell it to a FLGS for $30 their margin of profit per book is $10.

A direct sale nets them a $20 profit.

If you split the sales evenly, after recouping costs, GG would net $1500 in profit.

Let's bring Amazon into the equation. Amazon doesn't want to pay $30 per copy, so they negotiate a price of $25 per book. That means each book only nets $5 in profit for GG. They also cut into sales at both FLGS and GG heavily.

Let's say half of all 100 copies sold go through Amazon. GG makes a profit of $250 from that channel.

Let's say another 25 copies get sold at the FLGS. That nets GG a profit of $250 as well.

Finally, the remaining 25 copies are direct sales. This nets GG a total profit of $500.

Their total profit would only be $1000, or 33% less than if they didn't allow Amazon to sell the book.

Does that clear things up?

Vanguard wrote:

Blustar wrote:If Amazon buys the book from GGs for the same price that GGs sells it to a gaming store, how does this affect GG's profit? Amazon can sell it for whatever they want right? I mean if GGs sets the price they sell the game , so how can they "lose" money by selling to Amazon?

My undertanding was that retailers have to mark up the cost to make a profit because they have overhead costs of running a store, but Amazon can sell for a discount because they don't have a store. Are you guys claiming that GG has to sell for the price that Amazon sets? So Amazon is forcing GG to sell cheaper and losing profit? It doesn't make sense to me. . .

Yes. Large retailers like Amazon have actually reversed the traditional method of negotiating prices with a distributor. The likelihood that Amazon would purchase the books at the same price per unit as a small brick-and-mortar store is extremely unlikely. They can leverage the fact that they are the largest online retailer in the world, that they a buying in such bulk, etc as to justify a lower cost per unit.

While it may seem like they are only losing a little bit of money per book, the problem becomes increasingly exacerbated because the company starts losing direct sales to Amazon, as they offer a discount that GG does not.

These numbers are entirely fictitious, but still illustrate the point:

For the purposes of this equation, let's say the book costs $20 to produce and GG prints 100 copies in total. The cost of that print run is $2000.

The retail price is $40

If they sell it to a FLGS for $30 their margin of profit per book is $10.

A direct sale nets them a $20 profit.

If you split the sales evenly, after recouping costs, GG would net $1500 in profit.

Let's bring Amazon into the equation. Amazon doesn't want to pay $30 per copy, so they negotiate a price of $25 per book. That means each book only nets $5 in profit for GG. They also cut into sales at both FLGS and GG heavily.

Let's say half of all 100 copies sold go through Amazon. GG makes a profit of $250 from that channel.

Let's say another 25 copies get sold at the FLGS. That nets GG a profit of $250 as well.

Finally, the remaining 25 copies are direct sales. This nets GG a total profit of $500.

Their total profit would only be $1000, or 33% less than if they didn't allow Amazon to sell the book.

Does that clear things up?

But wouldn't selling the book through Amazon increase sales dramatically? hypothetically, this is why they negotiate a lower price right? Because, they will sell twice as many or even more. So the increased sales would increase profits.

Anyways, what your saying is that GG has refused to sell to Amazon at a reduced price, right? Couldn't GG tell Amazon, sure I'll sell it for $25 but you have to buy 2000 copies or whatever? ( or does Amazon have all the leverage?)

I've seen Amazon sell items for only 15% off instead of their normal higher discount. So, I think GG could sell to Amazon at their normal rate.

I think trying to protect B&M stores is a mistake. Where I live, I know all the game store owners within 50 miles and they will not sell more than 2-3 copies this month of DCCRPG.( At least they don't expect to sell more than that) RPG's are at the very bottom rung of percentage of sales for my FLGS. I know because I've asked them. Most stores will not stock RPG's and force you to special order them. WTH is the point then of having a B&M store where I can browse or whatever?

Pathfinder Core Rulebook from Paizo is 37% off but Traveller from Mongoose games is 0% off on Amazon. How is this possible? Amazon doesn't offer any discount for the Mongoose stuff. Why can't GG offer their games without a discount instead? Is GG really smaller than Mongoose and Paizo?

I think not offering on Amazon and trying to protect stores hurts more RPG players in the long run and to help stores that aren't pushing our hobby.

Whatever the reason for not doing Amazon, I still do not see how anyone cannot get this book online. I must be missing something.

Karaptis wrote:Whatever the reason for not doing Amazon, I still do not see how anyone cannot get this book online.

Me neither...

http://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProducts ... GenreID_E_